Several poor countries, mostly in Africa, have agreed to take deportees from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants. What motivates them?
The African nations of Rwanda, South Sudan and Eswatini have already accepted deportees – almost entirely citizens of other countries – as has El Salvador in Central America.
Uganda, too, has agreed to take deportees, including one of the most high-profile cases, a Salvadoran man named Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March and alleges torture in prison there before being returned to the United States.
The State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by phone to Uganda’s long-ruling president Yoweri Museveni last week before announcing Garcia’s deportation, which is currently held up by legal challenges.
Details of all these agreements remain murky.
Uganda hosts one of the largest refugee populations in the world and receives significant international assistance to support them.
It also relies on US aid, especially for its HIV-AIDS programmes.
Ugandan opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, told AFP the government was “desperate” for US backing.
He said the deal likely involves “hosting individuals with criminal records in exchange for aid, political support and economic cooperation”.
‘Gesture of goodwill’
South Sudan, a desperately poor country in east Africa on the verge of renewed civil war, accepted eight deportees in July, only one of South Sudanese nationality.
All eight were convicted of serious crimes in the United States and were described as “barbaric, violent criminal illegal aliens” by the Department of Homeland Security.
“South Sudan responded positively to a request from the U.S. authorities as a gesture of goodwill, humanitarian cooperation and commitment to mutual interests,” its foreign ministry said at the time.
Since then, Washington has lifted some visa restrictions on officials that it imposed in April as part of a blanket ban on all South Sudanese entering the US – which it directly linked to the country’s previous refusal to accept deportees.
Lily Sukeji Michael, a women’s activist based in the capital Juba, said the government was hoping to see a range of sanctions lifted, including an arms embargo, though that has yet to occur.
Rwanda agreed this month to take 250 “vetted” migrants from the US and said on Thursday that the first seven have already arrived.
The details have not been released, but a similar deal with Britain, signed in 2022, promised Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds in development assistance, though it was scrapped when the British government changed hands last year.
‘Shielded’ by Trump
El Salvador’s strongman president, Nayib Bukele, has already taken hundreds of deportees from the US this year, including 252 Venezuelans who were imprisoned for four months.
This has bolstered ties with the Trump administration, which has turned a blind eye to Bukele’s rights record, including moves to cancel term limits and widespread allegations of arbitrary detentions and prison deaths as part of a crackdown on gang violence.
Bukele feels “shielded by his association with the US president”, said Noah Bullock, director of rights NGO Cristosal.
Some rights groups are pushing back, especially in Eswatini, a tiny absolute monarchy in southern Africa that took five non-African deportees in July, described by the Department of Homeland Security as having committed “uniquely barbaric” crimes.
“The Trump administration is targeting weaker democracies where they know there will not be any questions,” said Melusi Simelane, of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, one of a group of organisations that has taken the government to court over the issue.
The groups believe Eswatini may have been promised trade deals, individual financial incentives or reduced criticism of its rights record.
But Mzwandile Banele Masuku, of the Eswatini Litigation Centre, told AFP that, for now, “it is all speculation”.
None of these deals will make a dent in the numbers leaving the US – which the Department of Homeland Security says reached 1.6 million during Trump’s first 200 days in office.
“This is more about messaging and deterrence – trying to get people to self-deport and trying to deter people from coming to the US-Mexico border,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a lawyer at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.
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By Garrin Lambley © Agence France-Presse
